Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Here's a mandala that started out as a pencil drawing, and which I reconstructed later on the computer. The Adobe Illustrator program allowed me to achieve interesting effects with the gradient tool.

My mandalas often start out as no more than doodles, a solitary pastime as I wait for restaurant dinners to be served.

I've given a couple of workshops on mandalas and noticed that many people look at a seemingly elaborate design (like today's header) and say, "I don't know where to begin!" That's because they're seeing the whole and finished image, and not the symmetrical, repeating parts.

The making of a mandala is a process, and it's not unlike constructing a snowflake from folded paper. If you make a paper snowflake, you concentrate on a sub-unit that will be repeated, and the final result will reveal itself later (and be a surprise). Mandalas can also reveal themselves, and of course you can edit and refine your design.

One fun approach to making a mandala is to create a simple black and white line mandala and then to use it as a template for a variety of interior designs and colorations. They can all have very different personalities.

I do this often, and as you can see, the template is just a starting point for which there are countless possibilities. It can be very meditative, and it's a lot of fun!

14 comments:

Hello Mark:we love the idea of a Mandala having a 'personality' and, looking at the various images you show here, one can definitely see that one can create 'happy' and 'sad' mandalas with the use of colour and the various repeating patterns.

Next time we are waiting for our restaurant food to arrive, we shall gaze at our plain napkins and imagine what you would make of them!Perhaps before and after eating, the Mandala might take on quite a different 'personality'!!!

Not only do mandalas have different personalities, in the sense of being reflective of their maker, but sometimes they seem to evolve into a theme that can surprise the maker! And that's where they can become interesting as a source of self-analysis. Looking at one's own mandala can be like interpreting a dream.

Your colored and details mandalas look like kaleidoscope patterns with order imposed on them.

Some of the simple understructures remind me of Chinese ba-gua patterns, which usually have a yin-yang symbol in the middle, surrounded by eight trigrams and enclosed in an octagonal frame.--Road to Parnassus

Dear Mark, That does it! Do you have a piece of Mylar measuring 10 or 12 inches in diameter? If so, transfer one of your Mandala designs onto it. I will send you Saral paper (for copying onto bisque plate) 2 brushes, a hand thrown bisque plate and a few colors. Do you have a ceramic shop nearby? If not, I will glaze and fire the plate for you after you have painted it.

Dear Mark - I just love that first mandala image, it reminds me of images I have seen in Chinese temples. I could imagine myself getting hooked on creating mandalas, so much so that I probably would have no more time for blogging.

Dear Rosemary - As a matter of fact, as I was working on that first mandala, I was thinking of Mayan temples. So much of my mandala designing is initial sketching and doodling, and then the finished pieces are usually done in sporadic bursts, so it doesn't really seem time-consuming.

Mark - I agree with Parnassus: kaleidoscope immediately came to me upon seeing the mandalas. They are all so interesting and hypnotic. The more I stare, the more they move...in and out. Too much wine here :-)Loi